#lady mariko

[valcoutoart]

~"Flowers are only flowers because they fall..."

[xspooky]

"if I could use words / like scattering flowers and falling leaves / what a bonfire my poems would make"

"what a bonfire she made"

any shogun watchers out there???

[unsquared]

So many shogun fans absolutely begging for more episodes as if new eps wouldn’t corrupt the entire pathos of the series

[ariadnethedragon]

Blackthorne x Mariko

SHŌGUN (2024)

[cinematic-phosphenes]

John Blackthorne: To be far enough out that you look around and there's nothing but open seas. No yesterday. No tomorrow. Lady Mariko: Just today.

Anna Sawai as Lady Mariko — Shōgun (2024) | E03

[bloomsbury]

just a stinky feral puppy and his vengeful suicidal lady

[iwasnotaslasher]

[lasaraconor]

[cutterpillow92]

Shōgun (2024), Chapter Six: Ladies of the Willow World

[redsamuraiii]

Anna Sawai training with Naginata for Shogun (2024). 😎

Naginata is a weapon used by Onna Musha (Female Warrior) who are non combatants that defends the castle and household. They act as the last line of defense to protect the lord, elderly and children in the event the enemy made it pass through the front line.

[goldiecastelia]

WHERE ARE THE FANFICS!?!?!?!?!?!? FOR ALL THAT IS MOST SACRED, WHERE ARE THE FANFICS?!?!?!?!?!?! It could even be an alternative universe, but please make fanfics!

[finitevariety]

Blackthorne's 'consider living for meee 🥺' gambit is sooo good because the obvious rejoinder (consider how little your feelings matter in the face of all Mariko has endured) is one he is already WELL aware of. It's so obvious that the only reason he's trying this fucking where's-my-hug style gambit is because there's literally no other option available to him--beyond, that is, accepting her plan.

And in the end what's a truer expression of love than that moment, holding the blade above her, waiting?

He doesn't understand the choice she's making--in fact, he hates it. After all, his whole life in this country has been in essence a second life. He was rebirthed starving and scurvetic and fucking stinking, covered in guts as he emerged from the pit! Life takes you to the edge and back again but so long as you are at its table there are always dice to be rolled. Death is, therefore, defeat, and off the table entirely. It is never a choice.

Blackthorne feels that as he experiences the world, so he defines it. If he ceases, the world ends also. It's not a selfish feeling: it comes very naturally to very many of us. What's the point in thinking about the world without us in it? We can no longer influence it, nor reap its rewards. He will probably always feel this, and for him it's true.

For Mariko, though, death is the reason she was kept alive. Her life has meaning to her, of course. Yet that subjective meaning--her experiential life--is subordinate to and distinct from her life's purpose. She has always stood where she was supposed to stand, left the room when it was time, known what to say--and she knows, as clearly as the trees know when to drop their blossom, that her death is always an option. Death confers a meaning onto her life that extends beyond her subjective experience and into the world. If she ceases to be, the world will react to it--and from her death, if she uses it correctly, a thousand ripples will emanate. She has gone through her whole life feeling this, and for her it's true.

Blackthorne talks in this episode about the simple words he has picked up in his time here. These pale in comparison to what he has learned about translation, which is: some things can never be communicated in a way you will understand. That does not mean they are untrue. It does not even mean your own, opposite truth is rendered false!

Sometimes all you can do when you love someone is make their incomprehensible choice easier for them to bear.

[redpool]

It is genuinely so funny that only Mariko can understand him and his insults.

[unsquared]

Shogun fans on tuesdays

[ariadnethedragon]

SHŌGUN (2024)

Chapter 9: Crimson Sky

[cinematic-phosphenes]

Lord Toranaga: Would your loyalty to God conflict with your service to me? Lady Mariko: If I were just Christian, yes. But I have more than one heart.

Anna Sawai as Lady Mariko — Shōgun (2024) | E01